Clarity through Consoles

I recently received a pleasantly surprising e-mail from a clinician and colleague here at Child Guidance Center which read, “I feel like a six year old girl getting her Christmas gift early!” When you help manage an organization’s internal IT, the emails you receive typically contain more problems than praise. In this case my exuberant colleague was referencing a new EHR tool we’d rolled out which allowed her to access, manage and organize client info efficiently. It’s not that the tool provided her with previously unavailable information, it made that information more accessible. That tool was a console.

A console is a widget-based interface (connected, in this case, to Netsmart’s CareRecord™) with a manageable view which can be configured according to a user’s role. Rather than search for the information they need, my colleagues now have it at their fingertips. Consider, for example, the workflow of a Child Guidance Center clinician:

The “My Day” screen offers everything from an overall view, to a calendar and also to dos

Client summaries include the latest lab results and any episodes displayed in sub-categories

Documents pertaining to sub-categories (treatment plans and assessments, for example) can be accessed beneath the sub-categories

An intake widget allows clinicians to quickly launch a new record

Thanks to customization features within the console, we’ve been able to configure screens to match the workflow needs of our staff based on their role in the organization. For example, our billing staff have access to a series of consoles which track expiring authorizations, clients requiring eligibility verifications and clients with no financial eligibility. Our clinical team, on the other hand, have consoles which provide visibility to the clinical side including problems, progress notes and treatment planning.

Consoles have saved time, provided a more complete picture of our clients (even over a course of years) and helped us manage our ever-increasing workload. Consoles have literally changed our users’ lives